


The Festival of Happiness

by orphan_account



Category: Butterfly Soup
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Royalty AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 15:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12278913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Diya doesn't want to go to the festival. Akarsha thinks she should. Noelle thinks she shouldn't. Min makes it all worth it.





	The Festival of Happiness

The jester walks slowly through the gold-plated, regal doors and stops to take a low bow to the princess. She stays bowed, displaying her inferiority and loyalty to the princess.  
“Princess Diya, it is an absolute _honor_ to be in your presence, your highness.”  
“Akarsha, you don’t need to do that every time,” Diya responds with a giggle- though she supposes this is the purpose of a jester, to make her laugh, and it does work every time.  
Akarsha jerks her head up and smiles. “Oh, but _princess_ , it would be blasphemous of me not to bestow upon you the proper respects!” Akarsha takes several steps forward- much too many to be considered proper at all- and yanks Diya out of her throne.  
Diya stumbles onto the majestic red rug that lines the way from her throne to the door. This is her personal throne room for meeting with civilians. It’s much smaller than her parents’, of course, but to any regular citizen, it was gigantic. “What was that for?” she asks, after regaining her balance.  
“The festival’s tonight, dummy. This is your once-a-year chance to go out and actually do normal stuff for a change! Plus, there’ll be lots of hot people there~” Akarsha makes a motion with her hands not unlike drawing a sword out of a sheath, and Diya doesn’t even have to think about it to know who she’s referring to.  
“Min _shouldn’t_ be there,” she huffs, but it would be the epitome of a pleasure to go and see her out in the kingdom, without the suffocating formalities between a princess and her knight. “I never gave them permission to do so. Captain of the royal guard leaving my side for a festival would be suicide.”  
“Oh,” Akarsha says with a sly smirk. “Trust me, the _last_ thing Min wants to do is leave your side.”  
The princess doesn’t stop blushing for another five minutes.

 

“You shouldn’t go to the festival. If the king and queen found out you were there, it’d be like you committed several counts of murder. They’d banish you,” Diya’s advisor warns, but she knows she’s exaggerating. “Besides, you’re supposed to stay and keep watch over the castle while your parents are out being royal in the kingdom.”  
Diya weighs her options.  
Option number 1) Go out to the festival.  
Pros: She’ll get to be a regular girl for once, she’ll be able to have fun, she’ll be able to have fun _with Min_ , she’ll converse with her citizens, she’ll eat gross festival food and laugh about how gross it is.  
Cons: If someone recognized her, they’d surely tell her parents, and then her parents would get mad at her, and then they’d lock her in a tower or something with a dragon guarding it (She heard that happened to Queen Chryssa of the neighboring kingdom once), and then she’d never see Min, or Noelle, or Akarsha, or Jun, or Hayden, or _anyone_ ever again, and then she’d die of loneliness all because she wanted to sneak out one night and-  
“Diya, are you okay? I didn’t mean to make you panic-”  
“It’s alright!” Diya assures immediately. “But I think you’re right, Noelle. I shouldn’t go to the festival.”  
Diya expects Noelle to get this satisfied look she gets when she wins an argument or someone acknowledges her correctness, but she doesn’t. Instead, she just looks at Diya and frowns, and stops eating her meal. “You should go to the festival,” she says after a moment. “I’ll even go with you, even though it’s ridiculous and unnecessary.”  
“You don’t have to,”  
“Diya, are you really going to make me say, ‘No, but I _waaant_ to~~” like some cliche romance novel?”  
This makes Diya laugh- her friends always know how to make her laugh- and she feels a little more confident in going to the festival.

 

It’s 8:03 P.M. and the festival starts at 10:00- it’s to celebrate one of the eight core facets of life, happiness, so it’s one of the most energetic and loved festivals, going all through the night having fun- and Diya isn’t ready.  
“You should wear this dress,” Noelle says, like she’s calculated which dress is the perfect one. Akarsha grabs the dress out of Noelle’s hands.  
“ _You_ should wear this dress,” she amends, pointing at Noelle.  
“What? Why should I?”  
“It’ll look good on you,” Akarsha says with a shrug, and places it back in the closet. “You know what you should wear, Diya? A giant parka. No, wait, two giant parkas.”  
“Akarsha, it’s the middle of summer,” Noelle combats.  
“But she definitely wouldn’t get recognized!”  
Diya watches their conversation go on for a few minutes, feeling too awkward to actually join in. There’s a familiar anxious ball growing at the pit of her stomach, whispering sinisterly to her about all the things that could possibly go wrong, and every thought that runs through her head makes her heart beat a hundred times faster.  
“Everything in your closet is way too princess-y, princess.” Diya’s eyes dart to the door where Min stands, and also several other people. “You’d get recognized in a heartbeat.”  
Min takes a few steps in, not bothering to hold the door open for the other people who she, for some reason, probably invited. Then she shrugs, glancing at the closet. “It doesn’t matter though. If someone tried to hurt you or tell your parents, I’d whip out my sword and kill them!”  
“I mean, that’s sort of your job, Min,” Akarsha comments, unaffected by Min’s casual exclamation of violence. None of them are affected anymore, really. Min's always been... incredibly violent.  
Once everyone is through the door, Diya recounts all the familiar faces.  
There’s Jun, who waves hello a bit awkwardly, there’s Hayden, who smiles as bright as the sun with an arm slung over Jun’s shoulder. Both of them are still dressed in their knight outfits. There’s Queen Chryssa, and her wife, Queen Liz, both of whom are playing the true part of the mom-friend, immediately darting to the closet and pushing aside Akarsha and Noelle, who definitely don’t know a thing about fashion. Then there’s also Ester, captain of Chryssa and Liz’s royal guard, and “Yuki” and “Sakura”, the knights who insist those are their real names (Diya’s not sure if they’re just very weird or terrible at being undercover).  
With them all in there, it’s the whole Death Bagel squad (+Jun and Hayden), an affectionately named ‘training’ group (It’s really more of a friend group, even though they do spar and train sometimes) formed over a year ago, when Chryssa was still a princess and Liz was simply her fiancée.  
Diya wants to cry.  
Not because she’s sad, no, far from that- they haven’t all been together like this in a while, ever since Chryssa and Liz became in charge of an entire kingdom, and there’s so many memories and inside jokes that it just makes Diya want to break down of happiness.  
She forces herself to bring her attention back to Min (That’s the first time that sentence has ever been said, ever) instead of the beautiful joy of friendship. Min is smiling brightly, satisfied that they’ve made Diya so happy, and Diya thinks maybe the festival won’t be so terrible after all.

 

The festival is not, in fact, so terrible after all.  
Actually, it’s pretty amazing.  
Diya stops for a moment and looks around at all her friends. Akarsha is dancing wildly and Noelle has somehow been convinced to dance with her, albeit reluctantly. Noelle is blushing furiously at something Akarsha has said, and refuting it angrily. They’re so utterly and completely happy that it makes Diya’s heart swell with the absolute opposite of anxiety.  
Chryssa, Liz, and Ester are all ordering food at a stall. Chryssa is speaking and Liz is laughing and Ester is smiling, and Liz stands on her tippy toes to give Chryssa a kiss on the cheek and it’s beautiful and everything is so beautiful.  
Min is teasing Jun about something- his face is in his hands, and Diya is sure he’s blushing under there, and Hayden is right next to him, almost overlapping, laughing along with whatever Min is saying. They’re all so close, metaphorically and literally, and so comfortable being close.  
“Yuki” and “Sakura” are discussing something in great detail, a little ways away from the center of the festival. Diya can see them just barely in her vision, but their eyes are so focused and they seem incredibly excited about whatever they’re speaking about. They’re passionate and they share the same passion, and it’s heartwarming to see them both so happy about something they equally love.  
Diya herself is content just watching- she’s never liked interacting with people much, anyway- just outside the area of dancers. She has no idea what time it is, just that the night sky is dark and stunningly clear, although there are some clouds gathering, decorated with trillions of stars that Diya could look at for decades. Along the festival, there are hundreds of lights illuminating the pathways and the laughing people, and Diya thinks that this night could not possibly get any better, or any worse.

And right after she has that thought, as if on cue, it starts to rain. 

There’s audible groans of disappointment littered through the people as they start to duck for cover- the rain skips drizzling and goes straight to pouring as Diya searches frantically for somewhere to hide.  
The scattering of people makes her lose track of her friends, and then, _oh god, what if she can’t find them, what if she’s all alone, what if, what if, what if._  
Something taps her shoulder and she jolts, whipping around to see what’d touched her.

It’s Min. 

And Min’s looking at her curiously, and Diya is half-smiling and half-frowning because _the festival is ruined_ but _at least I’m not alone_.  
“What the hell are you doing?” Min asks pointedly.  
“I- getting away from the rain?” Diya responds, a bit taken aback.  
Min rolls her eyes. “Are you kidding me? The rain is the best part.” They take hold of Diya’s hand and tugs her away from under her precious, dry shelter, right into the center of the festival.  
This is where all the dancing people were, a few minutes ago. They’re all running back to their homes now, if they’re not already there. But Min drags her out into it anyway, not caring about anything other people were doing (They never really did in the first place), and the music is shut off, but the rain has a steady beat to it.  
And Min grabs Diya, and they dance.  
It’s awkward. And messy. And Min somehow steps on both of Diya’s feet at the same time. But it’s _happy_ , and it’s _beautiful_ , and it’s _close_ , and it’s _heartwarming_ , and Diya can’t imagine why she had tried to run away from the rain at all.  
Min gives her an uncoordinated twirl and when Diya comes back, she’s suddenly dipped below Min (which is insane, because Diya is tall, and Min is small) and Min smiles, softly and lovingly, and she’s blushing too (they’re both blushing) as she leans in for a kiss.  
Yeah.  
The festival isn’t so terrible after all.


End file.
